The latest newsletter from the Euro Working Group on Multiple Criteria Decision Aiding is now out. We have an article (pgs 8-10) on "Lessons Learned from Practical Applications of Multi Criteria Decision Aiding". The abstract is:

Having reviewed a large number of multi-criteria decision aiding projects from multiple companies across multiple sectors, it is evident that, for such a commonly-used process, the outcomes can be far less robust than expected. In many cases the preferred option was dropped for an alternative option by senior management or the preferred option turned out to be much less attractive than the scores suggested and better alternatives existed. We are continually looking to improve our products and processes and we have considered why this might be the case and what can be done to improve the overall process. We used a scientific approach to understand the root causes and identified how we could improve the outcomes. Based on this research we have enhanced our software and workshop practices accordingly so that we can deliver significantly more robust evaluations for our Clients. This article gives a brief outline of some of the steps we have taken that we believe will improve the process. A more detailed explanation is covered in our book “Successful Problem Solving”.

Objectives of the EWG-MCDA

Multicriteria decision aid is an important branch of Operational Research. Beyond the exchanges and meetings which already exist by means of the international conferences and the publications in the scientific journals, the objectives of the working group are the following:

to contribute to the development, at a European level, of an original way of thinking in the field of multicriteria decision aiding,

to allow each member of the group to make to others methodological, theoretical or applied results, to submit its own work and thoughts to the critical discussion of the group and also facilitate some collaborations,

to develop multicriteria aid for decisions by facilitating contacts with every people interested in the subject and by stimulating continuity and progress in exchanges and work,

to keep the group alive and open by means of bi-annual meetings which must not be mini-conferences but real meetings favourable to exchanges,

to emergence of news ideas.

86th Meeting

The 86th meeting of the European Working Group “Multiple Criteria Decision Aiding” will be held on September 21-23, 2017 in Paris, France. The main theme of this meeting will be "Multiobjective Combinatorial Optimization". Further details on how to attend can be found here.